some clarification re: gnosticism. “it is not the physical world with its earth and trees, but the system (in Greek kosmos) created by unconsciousness that is evil, or at least relatively so. it is not an ethereal heaven, but individuated consciousness that the pneumatic [i.e., filled with spirit, from the Greek pneuma] Gnostic attains to when the limitations of unconsciousness are overcome by Gnosis. it is not sexuality that is evil, but the psyche’s bondage to blind instinctuality with its accompanying unconsciousness. it is not life that is rejected, but a life of brutish unconsciousness, which is the cause of most of humanity’s afflictions. the Demiurge is none other than the human ego, alienated from its deeper psychic background (the Pleroma): arrogant, one-sided, and having rejected the wisdom of the Feminine.” —Stephan A. Hoeller, “How to Understand Gnosticism,” Gnosis Magazine 2